A Chicago police officer, Creed would see justice in the Sox blowing a 15-game lead in the American League Central and joining the Cubs of '69 and '03 in Chicago baseball infamy. He represents a not-so-silent minority of Cubs Nation hoping a long month gets even longer for their South Side brethren.

Rooting against the Sox has allowed that brand of Cubs fan to remain engaged in a baseball season that lost meaning for them sometime during the Matt Lawton era.

"I think there are tons of fans out there hoping the Sox lose, I've talked to a bunch myself," said Bob Sirott, the host of "Chicago Tonight," on WTTW-TV and a lifelong Cub fan.

That many of those people happen to be adults has Sirott chagrined.

He was a child when the Sox won the American League pennant in 1959, and it depressed him. But with age came the maturity that made Sirott realize that cheering for the Cubs did not have to include cheering against the Sox.

"You should outgrow that," Sirott said. "If you don't, you have a serious dysfunction. There's something lacking in your life if you feel that way. I take no pleasure from seeing them lose. It does not help Cubs fans if the Sox lose. That's ridiculous."

That was the same message Scott Turow, the noted author and Cubs fan, delivered to his nephew after the boy was celebrating another Sox defeat.

Turow does not own a Sox cap and still refers to the Cubs as "we" and the Sox as "they." He sees no reason for any of his fellow Cubs fans to play the role of antagonist in the drama unfolding on the South Side and still holds out hope for a happy ending in October.

"I'm actually happy for them and would like to see the White Sox win the World Series," said Turow, whose new book "Ordinary Heroes," is due out Nov. 1.

But if the Indians edit the Sox out of first place?

"I'm afraid of the reality of it because it'd be the sports story of the year," Turow said. "If they'd lose that it would be an epic Chicago tragedy."

Where it would fall on the Chicago baseball continuum of failures, history would decide. But Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub, beamed with his trademark optimism that the Sox still could turn things around in the season's final two weeks and avoid the ignominy he lives with every day.

Banks watched the first two games of the Sox-Indians series at home in Marina Del Rey, Calif., and winced Monday night as he saw close-ups of the stress written all over Sox manager Ozzie Guillen's face.

"I felt so sorry for them," Banks said on the phone. "I have so much empathy for Kenny [Williams] and Jerry [Reinsdorf], they're such a big part of Chicago, and my pal, Minnie Minoso," Banks said. "If the Sox lose out, it would put a bad image on the entire city. Look at us, we never lived '69 down."

The void feels just as empty, 36 years later. Which is why Banks has felt so sad watching the White Sox unravel this month. He knows how long the pain would linger.

"When Billy [Williams], Fergie [Jenkins] and Ronnie [Santo] and I get together, that's the one thing we always talk about that we can't get out of our minds," Banks said. "That's what it would be like for Ozzie and his players. And I wouldn't wish that on anybody. So I really hope they pull it out."

Grant DePorter, the managing partner at Harry Caray's, hears mostly the same sentiments expressed at the restaurant often perceived as a kingdom for Cubdom.

DePorter was the marketing whiz who blew up the Bartman ball and used its remnants to sell spaghetti sauce for charity, but he has no plans to make a soup from the ashes of Guillen's burnt lineup cards if the Sox slide continues.

In fact, DePorter pointed out Caray's tenure in the Comiskey Park broadcast booth in explaining why he is rooting for the Sox to hold off the Indians for reasons beyond profit.

"It's going to hurt us economically if they're not there, but that aside, I want them to win badly because it'd be great for the city if they went all the way," said DePorter, who has a full promotional schedule of Sox parties planned for the playoffs.

"I find it impossible to root against the White Sox," Corgan wrote in an on-line chat for the Tribune's Web site. "Personally, I find the Sox haters lame, and once it goes beyond good-natured fun, have no use for it. Cubs fans that hate on the Sox strike me as insecure, you know, the same types that shout (at age 43, with beer in hand) `left field sucks.'

"Now, hating on the Cardinals, that is an entirely different business."